A tumultuous academic year is drawing to a close with faculty at more than half the state's public universities contemplating drastic votes of no confidence in University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross and the governing Board of Regents.

The Faculty Senate at UW-Madison will consider a symbolic no confidence resolution Monday, and discussion on a similar resolution is expected at UW-Milwaukee the week of May 9. Faculty on campuses in Green Bay, Eau Claire, River Falls, Superior and Whitewater also are considering voicing dissatisfaction with UW System leaders' advocacy efforts on behalf of campuses, as well as their hopes for change.

"If Madison passes it, I think there will be a tidal wave of others," said Rachel Ida Buff, an associate professor of history at UW-Milwaukee. "There has to be a pushback against austerity, and I would like to see Ray Cross lead it. I would hope he hears us in a way he hasn't before."

UW-Madison's Faculty Senate — 220 senators representing more than 2,200 faulty — ultimately may take a step back from voting no confidence.

There's no unanimity of opinion on a vote of no confidence with the political risks involved. Advocates of the no confidence vote say faculty shouldn't live in fear of the Legislature making further budget cuts out of retribution, and that they should make the strongest statement possible to Cross and the regents.

"(Cross and the regents) need to stop talking about accepting these new budget realities," said David Vanness, an associate professor of population health sciences at UW-Madison who is lobbying for the no confidence vote.

"They need to advocate that we need to change course, or Wisconsin is going to fall behind," he said. "Who's standing up for us? That's what we're asking for, and we're not getting."

UW System spokesman Alex Hummel said Friday that system leaders are focused on several priorities, including college affordability and better understanding the student experience in light of racial incidents on several campuses in recent months.

"Everybody respects the faculty's right to make a statement," Hummel said.

"The board should be respectful of the faculty expressing their views," Legon said. "Perhaps No. 1 among the elements they need to consider are the reputational issues their decisions and the decisions others make; how their actions affect the institution they are charged with overseeing."

At the end of the day, Legon said, governing boards "have a responsibility to protect assets, interests and the mission of the system they've been appointed to serve."

Backlash over cuts, tenure change

The underpinnings of the potential no confidence vote are complicated.

Faculty say UW System leaders should have fought harder against the $250 million state budget cuts in the 2015-17 biennium and the changes lawmakers imposed to weaken what were widely considered the strongest layoff protections in the country for tenured faculty.

Cross also should not have scrapped plans for chancellors to give presentations during a public Board of Regents meeting earlier this month on the effects of budget cuts, faculty say. Soft-pedaling the fallout may make it easier for lawmakers to make additional cuts in the next biennial budget, they say.

UW-Madison faculty are particularly concerned about the regents' handling at a meeting in early April of proposed campus-specific policies and procedures to guide implementation of the system's broader new tenure policy.

"There were changes inserted into policy at the last minute and there was no public discussion in the Education Committee about the changes," said Dorothy Farrar Edwards, chairperson of the executive committee of UW-Madison's Faculty Senate.

UW-Madison's Faculty Senate additionally was not given an opportunity to review and respond to changes made to the policy they wrote, in keeping with traditions of shared governance, she said.

Written by sociology professor Chad Alan Goldberg, the UW-Madison resolution declares the senate has no confidence in Cross or the Regents to "protect academic due process and shared governance."

The resolution says Cross and the regents as a result have damaged the reputation of UW-Madison "as a great state university that encourages continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank warned earlier this week that nothing good could come from a no-confidence vote. She suggested it could lead to a backlash from state lawmakers, as budget discussions are about to begin for the next biennium.

The chancellor also defended Cross's leadership.

"I can personally attest that he has consistently advanced the best interest of our campus, both publicly and behind the scenes," Blank wrote on her blog, Blank's Slate. "He does not deserve this resolution."

Blank has been working to reassure faculty that tenure protections as good or better than peer institutions are still in place. She said in an earlier blog post that as long as UW-Madison remains a strong research university, tenured faculty will not be laid off.

Republican state lawmakers forced the rewrite of tenure protections last summer by removing them from state statute and adding language that gives chancellors more flexibility to lay off faculty and realign academic programs to fit workforce needs and budgetary constraints. Faculty considered previous tenure protections rock solid because they were embedded in statute — something unique to Wisconsin.

New policy adopted in March by the regents would allow layoffs if an academic program were discontinued; previously, faculty could only be dismissed in a campuswide financial emergency or for just cause.

Response angers GOP

Several Republican lawmakers already have reacted angrily to the possible vote of no confidence in Cross and the regents.

"Passage of the resolution will prove that even more institutional reforms are urgently needed and must be included in the next state budget to protect tuition-paying students," said Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges.

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) said UW-Madison's consideration of a no-confidence vote "shows an arrogance that doesn't serve the University or its students well."

Vanness said he's concerned about the level of connections between UW System staff and the Legislature and governor. And the influence politics have over regents, who are appointed by the governor.

"I get the sense they are following a political game plan and aren't defending the university, which is what a regent is supposed to do," Vanness said.

Legon, the national president of the association that works with governing boards of universities and colleges, said while governing boards typically are either political appointments or elected positions, board members must remain independent of political influence.

"Their responsibility as fiduciaries to care for the system may take them in a direction that's different from the governor's," he said. "That's part of the deal."